On the Road - Salvador - Pt. 7 - The SENAC Restaurant-School

In Salvador, one obligatory stop for anyone interested in Bahian gastronomy and cooking is the SENAC Restaurant-School, located in a historic colonial house on the Largo do Pelourinho, the sloped square which is the epicenter of the Bahian universe. SENAC is a national Brazilian institution which teaches vocational skills in centers throughout the country, and the Salvador Restaurant-School is part of SENAC's cooking faculty in Salvador.

The restaurant was opened in 1975, and since then has served as an introduction to classic Bahian cuisine to hundreds of thousands of tourists and as a review of the riches of the cuisine to local residents. The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner from Tuesday to Saturday, and is invariably very busy, although it's almost always possible to get a table fairly quickly. (One thing to note - there are, in fact, two SENAC buffets housed in the same mansions. On the street level is a small buffet that serves standard Brazilian dishes, those that can be found in almost any pay-by-weight restaurant in Brazil. The Bahian buffet is up two flights of stairs on the top floor of the house.)

As the restaurant fuctions as a teaching facility as well as a restaurant, the cooks, bartenders and wait staff are all students at SENAC working under the supervision of the faculty's teachers and professors. Because of its non-profit status, the school's charge for the unlimited-serving buffet is a reasonable R$40 (about USD $20). There are cheaper Bahian restaurants in town (and there are definitely more expensive, too), but at no other will you be able to sample such a wide variety of Bahian dishes in a single location. Every day there are at least forty dishes available on the buffet, including an amazing selection of traditional desserts, something that Bahian cooks have been noted for for centuries. The number of dishes one can sample is limited only by one's appetite and capacity. You'll find abará and acarajé, of course, but also almost a dozen types of moquecas - everything from traditional standards like fish and shrimp up to moqueca de fato (fato meaning entrails). There are numerous rice and bean dishes, steamed fish and vegetables, sweet potatoes, various treatments of manioc and three or four traditional Bahian pimentas (hot sauce). A word to the wise when it comes to SENAC's pimenta; the restaurant makes no concessions to non-Bahians' limited tolerance for hot peppers. SENAC's hot sauces are very hot indeed, so be careful.

The service staff is hardworking and earnest, though it must be said that as it is composed of students, the service isn't always what one might call polished or speedy. But what the waitresses and waiters may lack in velocity they make up for in charm and friendliness.

The food at SENAC is good, at times very good. It may never be the best Bahian food on the planet, but it is the spot for newcomers to Bahian food to discover which dishes they love, which ones they like and which they'd prefer not to return to. A visit to SENAC should be made early in one's trip to Salvador. Later, in other restaurants, armed with what you learned at SENAC, you can knowledgeably read a Bahian menu and revisit those dishes that particularly appealed to you.

On the Road - Salvador - Pt. 6 - Museum of Bahian Gastronomy

The Museum of Bahian Gastonomy, Largo do Pelourinho, Salvador

Located in a beautiful historic house on the most famous square in Salvador, the epicenter of Bahian culture Largo do Pelourinho, the Museum of Bahian Gastronomy (Museu da Gastronomia Baiana in Portuguese) testifies to the importance of food and cooking to Bahia's cultural identity. Opened in 2006, the museum was the very first gastronomic museum in Latin America and one of the first in the world.

Managed and operated by SENAC, a Brazilian vocational institute with branches in all major cities in Brazil, the museum is conveniently situated next door to SENAC's Faculty of Gastronomy with its famous Bahian training restaurant.

dendê display

Although the museum is small, the exibits are very well displayed with all notations and graphic material in both Portuguese and English. Display cases showcase antique cooking utensils and equipment as well as porcelain and silverware for table service. Ingredients which are essential parts of the Bahian pantry - things like grated coconut and dendê palm oil are displayed and technique for extracting and using them are demonstrated.

One door down, in the neighboring structure, the museum operates a small bookstore with an excellent supply of books on Bahian and other Brazilian cuisines, including an almost complete selection of SENAC's own cookbooks. Although most of the books are in Portuguese, those published by SENAC have English translations of their texts and recipes at the back of the book, something which is of great benefit to foreign travelers. The bookstore also has a small espresso bar.

The house on the other side of the museum, on the uphill side of the sloping Largo do Pelourinho, contains the SENAC cooking school and restaurant. Next post in our On the Road - Salvador series will feature both.

On the Road - Salvador - Pt. 5 - Dona Mariquita's Moqueca do índio

Among the numerous "endangered" dishes to be found on the menu at Restaurante Dona Mariquita in Salvador, Bahia, is an intriguing appetizer called Moqueca do índio (Indian Moqueca). (Click here to read more about endangered dishes) The dish is described on the menu as "Pititinga roasted in banana leaf with toasted manioc crisps", but there's much more to the story of the dish than that.

pititinga

Pititingas are very small silver fish found throughout northeastern Brazil - small enough that they fit in the palm of your hand. In this dish they are combined with spices and hot chili peppers, lots of them, wrapped in fresh banana leaves, roasted over coals in a tin-can oven and served with small crispy manioc crackers as an appetizer. The dish is very spicy, smoky and with a pronounced but not overwhelming fishy flavor that is balanced by the blandness of the manioc crackers. At Dona Mariquita, the moqueca is served with the fish still in its banana leaf, surrounded by crisps. Diners simply place a couple of fish on a crisp and pop the whole thing in their mouth.

According to the restaurant's website, moqueca do índio was once common in Salvador where it was one of the traditional staple dishes of the baianas who have sold acarajé on the streets of the city since time immemorial. Today the dish has completely disappeared from Salvador, except at Dona Mariquita. In the rural districts of Bahia that surround the Bay of All Saints, from which Bahia gets its name, traditional foodways have survived longer than they have in the capital,however, and it was in those districts that Dona Mariquita's owners rescued the recipe and returned it to Salvador, where it once had been so popular.

According to the bible of Brazilian historic gastronomy, História da Alimentação no Brasil, by Luís da Câmara Cascudo, moquecas (roasted or stewed fish and seafood) were eaten by indigenous tribes in Brazil long before the arrival of Europeans in the middle of the second millennium, and can lay claim to be among the most ancient dishes of Brazilian gastronomy. Thanks to the effort of Dona Mariquita you can still eat this most primitive, and most delicious, dish at her eponymous restaurant. It behooves the diner to consider the immense age of this recipe and to hope that although Moqueca do índio may be endangered, it will not become extinct.

On the Road - Salvador - Pt. 4 - Dona Mariquita's Endangered Dishes

Walk down the long narrow one-way street called Rua do Meio in Salvador's happening Rio Vermelho neighborhood, away from the leafy Largo da Mariquita square which is home to Dona Cira's best-in-the-city acarajé stand, and you'll eventually come across a small unprepossessing restaurant named Dona Mariquita. It's on the right as you leave the square and is adorned only with a simple sign with its name. It's easy to miss, or at least it was for our taxi driver on the windy and rainy night we visited Dona Mariquita recently. He had to circle around and try a second time, but armed with the address and a trusty GPS we were able to find it second time around.

Even on a damp, raw evening - a rarity in tropical Salvador - the interior of the restaurant radiated warmth, human warmth. We were greeted with a smile by the entire waitstaff (it was still early, at least by Salvador standards), given our choice of seats and were helped to settle in, candles were lit. and menus were distributed. All of which made the effort we'd made to locate Dona Mariquita on such a stormy night worthwhile. The large room felt indeed like shelter from the storm.

Dona Mariquita had been on our to-do list for Flavors of Brazil's gastronomic tour of Salvador, Bahia ever since we'd begun planning the trip a couple of months ago. It's not the most famous restaurant in the city, nor the most chic. Neither does it perpetually top social network review sites. But with limited time, we'd chosen Dona Mariquita for one of our dinners - our "traditional Bahian cuisine" dinner - for one reason. Just as Diane Fossey provided sanctuary and shelter in Africa for her beloved gorillas, or as ethno-musicologist Alan Lomax recorded folktunes and spirituals as sung by black field hands in the Southern USA before they were lost forever, Dona Mariquita has as its purpose the preservation of "endangered dishes" of traditional Bahian cuisine. We wanted to see and taste the work of this interesting gastronomic project.

Dishes and recipes, as with any other cultural object, don't always have an unlimited lifespan. Whether it's Bahian food we're talking about, or Russian, or Chinese, dishes disappear from kitchens, tables and menus of even the most traditional gastronomic cultures to be replaces by new ones. In medieval Europe, swan was a traditional banquet centerpiece, though it's almost never eaten today. Italian pasta sauces from the same period, before explorers brought tomatoes back from the New World, have been changed radically by the arrival of that fruit. Bahian food is no exception to this rule, and some dishes that were common in earlier times are just not to be found in 21st-century Salvador, or anywhere else in Bahia - except at Dona Mariquita, that is.

The restaurant's "mission statement" which is published in Portuguese on its website says:

Opened on November 23, 2006, Dona Mariquita has as its purpose the preservation of traditional regional dishes of Bahia; dishes once served at fairs and festivals, street food, what you might call "roots food."...
Returning from a voyage to our gastronomic origins, Dona Mariquita has rescued original recipes and ingredients, bringing seafood from the Recôncavo da Bahia (the region surrounding Salvador), as well as seeds and leaves, blending together indigenous, African and countryside influences in search of the true flavor of our history. (translation by Flavors of Brazil)

Arroz de Hauçá

On the website, there is a very interesting article about the restaurant's efforts to preserve Muslim elements in Bahian culture, an influence that generally goes unnoticed in most discussions of the food of Bahia. Many of the black Africans who were forceably brought from West Africa to Brazil to slave on the colony's sugar plantations and in its mines were Muslims. Over time and under pressure from Catholic owners and authorities, most of these slaves became Christians in Brazil, and their Muslim heritage was lost or hidden. The restaurant features some dishes that can be traced back to Muslim West Africa, dishes like Arroz de Hauçá, variations of which are still common in Africa.

Dishes which are under the restaurant's protection are identified as such on the restuarant's extensive menu, which also features many of the non-endangered jewels of Bahian gastronomy such as Xinxim de Galinha and Moqueca de Peixe. We were unable to sample them all, due to limited time and stomach capacity, but did make sure that our menu choices focused on those dishes that, but for Dona Mariquita's efforts, might have disappeared entirely from Bahia's gastronomic history. Our next post  in this series will focus on these dishes. 

In the meantime, we applaud Dona Mariquita's noble effort and encourage readers of the blog who might be in the neighborhood in the future to do themselves the favor of enjoying the restaurant's unusual dishes while surrporting the preservation of Bahian food history at the same time.

On the Road - Salvador - Pt. 3 - The FIFA/McDonald's Scandal

It's hard to overstate the cultural value of the humble acarajé to the citizens of the Brazilian state of Bahia. This unprepossessing, fist-sized black-eyed-pea fritter has become the icon of Salvador in much the same way that the Eiffel Tower represents Paris, or Guiness represents Ireland. When tourists and returning locals exit the Salvador airport terminal on the arrivals level, they are immediately greeted by the unmistakable aroma of acarajé frying in a pot of dendê oil - the sidewalk in front of the terminal is home to several stands of baianas selling acarajé. That haunting aroma, the marvelous taste of the fritter and the traditional and ritualistic way in which it is sold are cultural touchstones of Salvador, and have been recognized by all levels of Brazilian government as important cultural patrimony worthy of protection.

So what does acarajé have to do with FIFA, McDonald's and the scandal referred to in the title of this post? As the governing organization for the 2014 World Cup of Football/Soccer, which will be held in Brazil, FIFA has control over many aspects of the Cup. Things like stadium capacity and required facilities, transportion of players and sponsorship of the Cup. Because the McDonald's corporation is one of the largest corporate sponsors of the World Cup, FIFA wants to prohibit the sale of acarajé within 2 km (1.2 miles) of Salvador's Fonte Nova stadium during the World Cup, in order to protect the interests (and hamburger sales) of McDonald's.

Could this....

become this???

This potential disruption of acarajé sales has created an uproar in Salvador. Rita Maria Ventura dos Santos, the president of Associação das Baianas de Acarajé e Vendedoras de Mingau (Abam), the official association of acarajé vendors, calls prohibiting sales of acarajé "absurd." She notes that at present there are eight acarajé stands within 2 km. of the stadium, and wonders what will happen to the women who own these stands when the Cup comes around. Community groups in Salvador are calling for a boycott of McDonald's to protest the move, and news of the prohibition and the boycott is spreading rapidly across all the Internet social networks.

The FIFA/McDonald's prohibition has not been confirmed yet by the Brazilian organizing committee or by Salvador's municipal authorities. The Bahia state Secretary in charge of World Cup arrangements has been quoted as saying no decision has yet been made, but will only confirm that the role of baianas and of acarajé in the World Cup is "under consideration."

On the Road - Salvador - Pt. 2 - The Joy of Abará

As Julie Andrews once warbled, "Let's start at the very beginning, A very good place to start...". So, we're beginning our reportage on our recent visit to Salvador, Bahia with the item that's always first (alphabetically, at least) in any list of traditional Bahian dishes - abará. It's hard to think of anything that might proceed abará in an alphabetical listing of dishes - except aardvark, and they don't eat aardvarks in Bahia.

 Abará  is one of the foods that is most closely associated with the Afro-Brazilian religion of Bahia, Candomblé, and it's also one of the items that can always be found for sale by baianas, the traditionally-dressed black women who sell Bahian food, most notably acarajé, on streets, squares and beachfronts of Salvador.

Iansã

In the rituals of Candomblé, which preserve the religious traditions brought from Africa to Brazil by slaves, abará is a favorite food of the orixá (divinity) Iansã, and offerings of food made to her invariably include abará. Iansã is the orixá of the River Niger in Africa, and of the wind, hurricanes and tempests. She is considered to be one of the most agressive of the female orixás and has dominion over the dead. In the syncretic tradition of linking orixás with saints of the Catholic church, she is identified with Santa Barbara and is worshiped as such in the Catholic churches of Bahia.

 There's nothing complex or complicated about abará - it's not a fancy or delicate food. But it does combine many of the most important ingredients of the Bahian pantry, which was large inherited from Africa. Basically, an abará is a soft batter made from black-eyed pears, flavored with bright orange dendê palm oil and cooked by being steams in a banana-leaf package. Sometimes ground dried shrimps are added to the batter for additional flavoring, but this isn't obligatory. Readers familiar with Mexican tamales will have a very good idea of what an abará is, as the two dishes are very similar. They differ in the mass used to create the dough - ground corn in the case of tamales and ground black-eyed peas in the case of abará. Although tamales are often stuff with a meat or chicken filling, abarás are not and resemble most closely those unstuffed tamales called "blind."

The list of ingredients that go into making abará is almost identical to acarajé. Both are based on the same batter, though in acarajé the batter is deep-fried in dendê whereas abará is steamed rather than fried and a small amount of dendê is stirred into the batter to flavor it. This makes abará slightly more healthy eating than acarajé, though it could never be considered health food.

In Salvador we sampled  abará at the famed Bahian buffet of SENAC, the public-private vocational school that can be found in any city in Brazil. In our next post, we'll look at the 40+ dish SENAC buffet in more detail. It's an edible encyclopedia of Bahian cuisine and an essential part of the Salvador experience.

(Click here for a recipe for abará  from an earlier posting on Flavors of Brazil).

On the Road - Salvador - Pt. 1

Salvador, Bahia

From time to time since beginning this blog in 2009, we've featured series of reports from various cities and regions of Brazil. We call them On the Road, and in the past we've reported on the gastronomic culture and food scene in such places as São Luis, Rio de Janeiro, Jericoacoara and Belém. Every one of these series originated with a trip to the location in question - visiting markets, street-food stalls, restaurants, museums and supermarkets. And in each, we've included restaurant reviews, photos and videos, and recipes.

This weekend we're in Salvador, Bahia, preparing for the next in the series. The state of Bahia, and in particular its capital, Salvador, is home to the most well-known and widely-appreciated of all of Brazil's regional cuisines, referred to in Portuguese as comida baiana and in English as Bahian cuisine.

Brazil's food culture is a complex mixture of influences, but there are three essential referential points - the gastronomy of Europe, particularly of Portugual, the native American gastronomy of the indigenous Amerindian cultures, and the gastronomy of Africa, which was brought to Brazil by captive slaves. Bahia's food culture rests primarily on African roots - the slaves who came to Brazil from Africa beginning in the 16th century carried very little with them in the holds of slave ships. Only their African cultural heritage - food, art, religion, music, rhythms and the like - survived the trip across the South Atlantic from Angola, Benin and Guinea to places like Bahia, Pernambuco and Minas Gerais in Brazil.

Candomblé

The African influences on Bahian culture bubble and stir together in a large open pot - the spicy dishes that Bahia shares with Africa are served in the temples of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé, and the rhythmic songs and chants of Bahia often sing the praises of local delicacies. It's all connected organically, and the mixture is unique to Bahia.

Starting at the beginning of next week, when we're back from Bahia, check out Flavors of Brazil, On the Road - Salvador. If you know Bahia, it should bring back some great sensory memories. And if you've not been there, it will surely whet your appetite to go.

Brazil Hosts the Salon du Chocolat for the First Time

The 20120 edition of the world's largest and most prestigious trade far and exposition dedicated to chocolate, the Salon du Chocolat, took place two weeks ago in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Previously, the exposition had been held in Europe, Asia and in North America, but this year was the first time it was held in the Southern Hemisphere and the first time it was held in South America. From July 02 to July 09, Salvador was the center of the chocolate world and the city's trade and convention center was chocolate heaven.

It was appropriate that of all the major Brazilian cities, Salvador was chosen to host the event. Bahia state historically and presently has always been the center of cacau cultivation in Brazil. Today Brazil ranks 4th in the world in chocolate consumption and 5th in the world in chocolate cultivation, and a good percentage of Brazilian chocoate originates in the cacau-growing region in the southern part of Bahia.

This edition of the Salon du Chocolat fittingly included a homage/tribute to Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado. 2012 marks the centennial of the Bahian writer's birth, and throughout the year his literary legacy is being commemorated in Brazil. Amado himself was the son of a cacau planter, and many of his novels, including his most famous, Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, were set in southern Bahia in the golden age of cacau production.

The exposition included a trade show, lectures, demonstrations, a symposium and a special kids' section. There were also tours to the region of cacau-production in southern Bahia prior to the events in the capital.

At a time when the industry is undergoing a renaissance and when the image of Brazilian chocolate is improving worldwide, hosting this prestigious event is a shot in the arm for Brazilian cacau agriculture. And a very sweet experience for participants in the event.

VEGETABLES OF BRAZIL - Green Amaranth (Caruru or Bredo)

This plant, which yields delicious green leaves that are often compared to spinach and often prepared in similar ways to spinach, is in the gastronomic sense very peripatetic - its history as a comestible has taken it back and forth across the oceans several times, obscuring its origins and engendering a confusing babel of names.

The scientific name of the plant is Amaranthus viridis, which tells us that it's a member of the large botanical family known as the amaranths. The amaranths are thought to have originated in the highlands of tropical North America, where they were a food source for Amerindians native to that region, such as the Maya. After Cortes' conquest of Mexico, Spaniards returning from the New World to the Old carried with them, among their treasures, newly discovered foods native to the Western Hemisphere. Chocolate, chili peppers, tomatoes and the domestic turkey were among Mexico's gifts to the kitchens of Spain, but so were plants like amaranth. Spanish and Portuguese explorers, colonists and slavers then carried amaranth on to Africa where it flourished and became part of the native diet.

When African slaves were forcefully brought to Brazil to work on sugar plantations and in gold mines, they brought their food traditions and their foods with them. Thus, amaranth recrossed the Atlantic ocean back to Brazil, where it became an integral part of the slaves' diet in colonial times. The route by which amaranth became part of Brazil's gastronomy, therefore, is a long one - Mexico to the Iberian Peninsula, to West Africa and finally back across the ocean to Brazil.

Because amaranth came to Brazil from Africa, not directly from Mexico, it is most strongly associated with the Afro-Brazilian cuisines of Northeastern Brazil, specifically in the state of Bahia where the African influence on cooking is strongest. In Bahia and neighboring states, the plant is normally called bredo in Portuguese. In other regions of Brazil it's better known as caruru. Confusingly, in the region where the term bredo prevails, there is a stew-type dish called caruru, made primarily with okra (quiabo) another vegetable import from Africa.

The plant's journey from Mexico to Brazil is not the only one it's made. From its Mexican origins, it has spread to India, particularly in South India, to Greece, and to the Caribbean, where the Jamaicans know it as callaloo. It has even become part of the Indian tradition of medicine known as Ayurvedic, where it is used as a medicinal herb.

Urbanized caruru/bredo

Even though the plant has significant food value, it has adapted itself so well to soil and climate conditions in Brazil that many farmers consider it invasive - a weed. It has even successfully urbanized itself and knowing foragers often spot it growing in abandoned inner city lots or even in cracks in the pavement. The smartest of these foragers have discovered this bounty and are helping themselves to a free supply of the green.

RECIPE - Bahian Farofa with Dendê (Farofa de Dendê)

All Brazilian farofas combine manioc flour (farinha) with some sort of fat or oil to moisten and flavor the dry, lightly-flavored flour. The fat can be melted butter or lard, it can be rendered bacon fat, or it can be a liquid oil like olive oil or neutral vegetable oil.

In the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia, where the local style of cooking evidences a strong African influence - a heritage of the history of slavery in Brazil - the oil typically used in making farofa is the shockingly-orange, highly-flavored palm oil called dendê, which came from West Africa with the very first slaves bound for Brazil's gold mines and sugar plantations.

This recipe from Bahia also adds another typically West African flavor to the manioc and dendê mixture - dried shrimps. With a strong flavor of the sea, the small, dried crustaceans are finely chopped or ground into a flour to add one more of Bahia's essential flavors to this dish.

Bahian dendê farofa, along with white rice, is the perfect accompaniment for any of Bahia's marvelous moquecas - fish or seafood stews, redolent of coconut milk, cilantro and dendê.

There is no adequate substitute for any of the main ingredients in this dish, though manioc flour (farinha), dendê and dried shrimps can often be found in Latin American and African markets in cities which have immigrant communities, and dried shrimps can also be found in most Asian markets.
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RECIPE - Bahian Farofa with Dendê (Farofa de Dendê)
Serves 6

1/2 cup (125 ml) dendê oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 oz. (100 gr) dried shrimp
2 1/2 cups dried manioc flour (farinha)
salt to taste
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Finely mince the dried shrimp with a large knife or cleaver, or, alternatively, grind them in a spice grinder.

Heat the dendê in a large frying pan, the add the chopped onion and cook until the onions are soft and golden. Add the minced or ground shrimp and stir well to combine. Add the manioc flour in a steady stream, stirring all the while to moisten all the flour. When the farofa is dry and the grains are separated, season with salt, then continue to toast the farofa for a minute or two, stirring constantly.

Serve immediately as part of a Bahian-style meal.

Recipe translated and adapted from Cozinha Regional Brasileira by Abril Editora.

RECIPE - Skate Moqueca (Moqueca de Arraia)

One of the most popular ways to serve arraia (ray or skate in English) in Brazil comes from the northeastern state of Bahia, specifically from the Afro-Brazilian culinary traditions of Salvador, the state's capital city and Brazil's original capital.

In traditional Bahian cuisine, a thick stew made from fish or seafood in a broth of tomatoes, onions, coconut milk and the brilliant-orange palm oil known as dendê is called a moqueca. The word moqueca and the recipe both come from Africa and the tradition of cooking fish in moquecas crossed the Atlantic to Brazil in the hold of slave ships which carried Africans to slavery in the mines and sugar cane plantations of Brazil.

This recipe for moqueca de arraia (moqueca of skate or ray) comes from the SENAC cooking school in Salvador, and is a typical moqueca. There are as many recipes for moqueca as there are cooks, but the ingredients used in this recipe are found in some combination in almost every recipe.

Dendê palm oil has a distinctive color and flavor and there really is no substitute for it, although substituting 2 or 3 tablespoons of sweet paprika will give the final dish almost the same color. However one of the most important flavor components will be missing when dendê is absent. In cities that have a Brazilian immigrant community, markets that cater to Brazilians will likely have dendê in stock, and in cities with an African immigrant population you can often find dendê in African markets, labeled simply palm oil.
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RECIPE - Skate Moqueca (Moqueca de Arraia)
Serves 4

2 lbs (1 kg) skate wings
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
juice of one lime
1 medium onion, sliced
2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded and sliced
2/3 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup dendê oil
1/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
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Cut the skate wings into large pieces. Bring lots of water to a boil in a large saucepan, then add the skate. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook the fish for about 15 minutes. Drain the fish, and let cool completely. When the fish is cool, using your fingers or a fork, pull the meat away from the cartilaginous bony structure and flake it. Discard the cartilage. Season the meat with the lime juice, chopped garlic and cilantro and season with salt. Let marinade no more than 1/2 hour.

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C)

In a ceramic or glass casserole, preferably round, layer the slices of tomato and onion, alternating with layers of the reserved fish. Pour the coconut milk and dendê oil over all. Place in the preheated oven, and cook for 20-25 minutes, or until the tomato and onion are soft and the broth is bubbling hot.

Serve immediately accompanied by plain white rice and some sort of hot chili-pepper sauce.

February Second - The Festival of Yemanjá

Yemanjá

Every year on February Second, some million or more people in the Brazilian city of Salvador, Bahia, walk in procession through the streets of the Rio Vermelho district of that city, all dressed in white, making their way down to the seashore and the small house that's said to be the home of Yemanjá, a powerful goddess (Orixá) in the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé. Yemanjá is the essence of motherhood, the protector of children, fishermen and sailors, and most importantly, she is the sea itself. When the celebrants reach the shore Yemanjá's they pass their baskets laden with gifts for the goddess to fishermen to take out to sea and leave them on the waters as offerings to the Orixá. Gifts for Yemanjá often include images of the goddess, flowers and objects of female vanity (perfume, jewelry, combs, lipsticks, mirrors). Later in the day, the festival of Yemanjá becomes a massive street party which carries on into the night.

In the synchristic tradition that blends the Orixás who traveled to Brazil with African slaves with the saints and holy figures of Christianity who arrived with the Portuguese,  Yemanjá is identified with certain aspects of the Virgin Mary, and February Second in the Roman Catholic calendar is the day of Our Lady of Navigators (Nossa Senhora dos Navegantes). The celebrants at Salvador's festival honor one divinity in two personages, the African Yemanjá and the Christian Our Lady, without thoughts of separation or difference between the two.

Gifts for Yemanjá

As with all the gods and goddess of the Candomblé tradition, Yemanjá is associated with certain foods, and these foods are offered to her on her special day as well as eaten by her devotees at the street festival that follows the ceremonical activities of the day. Yemanjá's colors, like the Virgin Mary's, are white and blue - obvious choices for a Rainha do Mar (Queen of the Sea). An Orixá's favorite foods are often visually connected with his or her image and chosen colors, Yemanjá's special food are white, or very light in color (there are very few foods that are truly blue). Yemanjá prefers sweet foods, making such dishes as honeyed rice and sweet corn puddings essential parts of her festival. She is said to be particularly fond of a sweet coconut-flavored milk jelly called manjar branco (the word is a cognate of the French-English word blancmange). She also enjoys puffed rice, and this snack is everywhere at her festival.

The following YouTube video was filmed in Salvador on February 02, 2011 during the festival of Yemanjá. The soundtrack is Brazilian singer Baden Powell singing his composition Canto de Yemanjá.


Tomorrow, Flavors of Brazil will publish a recipe for Yemanjá's manjar branco.

Cira - The Best Acarajé

Cira's acarajé

Every year, the Brazilian newsmagazine Veja (think Time or Newsweek) publishes a gastronomic guide for each of the major cities of Brazil called Comer & Beber (Eat & Drink).  In 2011 there were 20 separate editions published, from Porto Alegre in the far south of Brazil to Manaus in the middle of the Amazonian rain forest, and from 50-year-old Brasília to almost 500 year old Salvador. In each edition, the best in the city are honored in three major categories (restaurants, bars, and snacks) and many separate sub-categories, such as the best Italian restaurant, the best Brazilian restaurant, the best seafood, the best steak, etc. For each edition, the jury also chooses a "chef of the year" for the city.

Being included in the list of Veja's best is considered a high honor, and recipients in each category receive a wall-plaque indicating their status. The plaque is almost always prominently displayed somewhere near the entrance of the establishment, as a notification to potential customers, and the most highly honored restaurants often have a wallful of plaques from previous years.

In Salvador, the capital of Bahia state, and the spiritual home of the Afro-Brazilian cuisine of Bahia, one of the most coveted honors is to be voted the best maker of acarajé in the city. Acarajé, a delicious and addictive street food, is to Salvador what the coney island hot dog is to New York - a culinary icon for the culture of Bahia. It's also Bahia's collective Proustian madeleine - acarajé's utterly unique taste and aroma are potent emotional reminders of all that Bahia is, and the first bite of a piping-hot acarajé for a Bahian returning from a time away, or for a tourist coming back to Salvador for a second or fifth or fifteenth time is a gustatory key to unlocking memories of of previous times in the capital.

By law, acarajé must be sold in the traditional manner, by a woman dressed with at least some reverence to traditional Bahian dress, and cooked on site on the sidewalk, in a square or in a park. The way acarajé is sold has been enshrined as part of Brazil's immaterial cultural patrimony, and the sale of acarajé by baianas (as these women are called) even has it's own national day of celebration.

In it's 2011-2012 edition, Veja's jurors for Salvador, who all live in that city, chose the acarajé cooked and sold by Jaciara de Jesus Santos, known to all as simply Cira, as the best in Salvador. In its guide, Veja justified its choice of Cira this way (translated by Flavors of Brazil):

Around 10 in the morning, when the dendê oil is just beginning to be heated up, the first clients of the day have already begun to position themselves around the tabuleiro (a small tray to hold all the ingredients required to prepare acarajé) that Jaciara de Jesus Santos, or Cira, inherited from her mother more than forty years ago in Itapuã. From lunchtime on, especially on weekends, customer traffic increases and the line-up lengthens, but no one seems bothered by the wait. The wait, in fact, is part of the whole experience for residents of Salvador and for tourists, who not uncommonly are already on the way to the airport and who stop to carry to a far-away relative or friend the best acarajé in Salvador, according to Veja's jury. With a texture that is crunchy on the outside and light and fluffy inside, Cira's  fritter made from black-eyed pea flour adds generous complements of flavor-balanced vatapá, chopped green tomato salad, and if the customer wishes, a large portion of reconstituted dried shrimp. An acarajé costs R$4 (USD $2.50) or R$5 (USD $3) if you wish to add the shrimp. As well as acarajé, Cira sells bolo de estudante ("students' cake) for $R2.50 and cocada sweets for R$3. From Friday through Sunday, the presence of Cira herself is guaranteed. Her daughter Jussara and granddaughter Aline are in charge of Cira's two other locations, at Largo da Mariquita and in Lauro de Freitas, respectively.

Cira's stand is located on Rua Aristides Milton (no number) in the seaside district of Itapuã, very close to Salvador's International Airport. If you arrive in Salvador by plane, you can make Cira's acarajé your first bite of Bahia, and before you fly away, you can repeat the procedure on the way to the airport. You'll not forget it, nor her.

RECIPE - Fish Moqueca (Moqueca de Peixe)

The bright orange palm oil dendê, featured in yesterday's post on Flavors of Brazil, is closely connected in most Brazilians' minds to the cooking styles of the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia, where African cultural traditions have survived the longest and are the most vibrant of any place in Brazil.

One of the most characteristic cooking techniques in Bahia is called moqueca, and there are hundreds if not thousands of moquecas to be found in Bahia. One of Brazil's most authoritative dictionaries, Houaiss, defines a moqueca as:

a stew of fish, seafood, meat or eggs, made with coconut milk and  dendê oil plus seasonings (cilantro, onion, bell peppers, dried shrimps and chili peppers), cooked preferably in a clay casserole and served in the same dish. [Originally from northeastern Brazil, especially Bahia, but now considered characteristic of Brazilian cuisine in general, being found in various states of Brazil.]

Since the etymology of the word moqueca traces it back to an African word mu'keka meaning "fish chowder" or "fish stew" it's probably true that the first moquecas used fish as their principal ingredient and that other variations followed. So to begin with the beginning, here's a recipe for fish moqueca that comes from Bahia.
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RECIPE - Fish Moqueca (Moqueca de Peixe)
Serves 4

2 lb (1 kg) snook, grouper, or other firm, non-flaking white fish, cut into steaks or large chunks
juice of 1 lemon
salt and black pepper to taste
1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
4 medium tomatoes
1 medium green bell pepper
1 medium red bell pepper
1/4 cup firmly-packed chopped cilantro
3 Tbsp dendê oil (click here to read about purchasing and about substitutes)
2 cups coconut milk
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Season the fish with the lime juice, olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Reserve, marinading, for 30 minutes.

In a blender or food processor, blend the tomatoes, the onion, peppers and the cilantro until you have a homogenous but still slightly chunky liquid.

In a large frying pan, head the dendê oil, then add the mixture from the blender and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the sauce is hot and bubbling. Add the fish, covering the pieces with the tomato mixture and cook for one or two minutes. Stir in the coconut milk, bring to a simmer and cook for about 25 minutes, or until the fish is completely cooked and the sauce has thickened.

Serve in a decorative bowl, preferably of unglazed earthenware, garnished with cilantro leaves, a few rings of onions and bell peppers if desired. Accompany with white rice and a good, preferably homestyle hot sauce.

Recipe translated and adapted from Cozinha Regional Brazileira by Abril Editora.

RECIPE - Shrimp Bobo (Bobó de Camarão)

This classic dish from the state of Bahia is one of the cornerstones of the Afro-Bahian tradition of cooking that is so strongly linked to the state and to its capital, Salvador. It contains most of the fundamental ingredients in the Bahian cook's larder - manioc, coconut milk (lots of it!), dendê palm oil and the sweet fresh shrimps for which Brazil's north-east coast is so famous.

A bobó is a manioc cream or puree, which can be served unadorned or finished with shrimp or other protein.  Depending on the recipe and on the cook the puree can be as thin as a soup or something more substantial. The word bobó comes to Brazil from the language of the Ewe people who inhabited current-day Ghana, Togo and Benin and who were brought to Brazil as slaves in large numbers during the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In their language, bobó means "a dish made with beans." Today, there are no beans in bobó, at least in Brazil. Instead the cream is made with manioc, a native South American staple and one to which Afro-Brazilian slaves took enthusiastically when they were introduced to it in the New World.

For anyone who has any culinary curiousity or interest in Brazilian cooking and eating traditions, going to Salvador or anywhere else in Bahia and not trying bobó de camarão at least once would be nearly as great a gastronomic sin as not trying acarajé while visiting Bahia. (Nearly as great, but not quite). Fortunately, bobó de camarão is easy to find in restaurants that feature local dishes and is a staple dish on buffet tables in Bahian self-serve restaurants. It's also quite easy to make, and can be a great centerpiece for a casual dinner for a small group.  This recipe serves 8 well. White rice is an obligatory side dish, and if you add a green salad you have a complete meal.

The only ingredient that can be difficult to source outside Brazil (and which is absolutely necessary in a bobó) is the shockingly-brilliant orange palm oil called dendê. In North America and Europe it can be ordered online, or usually can be sourced in Latin American and African food markets. If the product is destined to the African trade, it might just be labelled "palm oil" - if it's orange and solid or semi-solid at room temperature, then it the right stuff. Manioc is available in the same markets, though it may be labelled cassava root, or yuca depending on the ethnic variety of the market.
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RECIPE - Shrimp Bobo (Bobó de Camarão)
Serves 8

For the manioc cream:
2 lbs (1 kg) cooking onions, peeled and chopped
2 lbs (1 kg) firm, ripe tomatoes, seeded and chopped
2 green bell peppers, seeded and chopped
4 Tbsp finely cilantro, finely chopped
2 lbs (1 kgs) manioc/cassava/yuca root, peeled, boiled and mashed
2 cups (500 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
4 cups (1 liter) coconut milk

For the shrimp:
4 lbs (4 kgs) medium or large shrimp, peeled, deheaded and deveined, with tails left on
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbsp salt
2 Tbsp cilantro, finely chopped
3 medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped
3 medium onions, chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup (125 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
4 cups (1 liter)coconut milk
2 Tbsp dendê oil
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 Prepare the manioc cream:  In a large heavy saucepan, combine the onion, tomatoes, green pepper and cilantro with the mashed manioc. Stir in the olive oil and coconut milk, then heat over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly, or until the cream begins to pull away from the bottom of the pan when you stir. Remove from the heat and reserve.

Prepare the shrimp: Rinse the shrimp well in plenty of cold running water. Drain. In a large, deep saucepan combine the drained shrimp, chopped garlic, salt, cilantro, tomatoes, onions, green pepper and the olive oil. Heat over medium high heat, stirring frequently. When hot, add the coconut milk in 1/2 cup amounts, stirring after each addition to completely mix. Continue to cook for 5 minutes more, stirring constantly.

Add the reserved manioc puree to the shrimps and continue to cook for 5 more minutes, stirring frequently. Just before removing from the heat, add the dendê oil and mix it in completely. Remove from heat, pour into a decorative deep serving platter, sprinkle with additional cilantro if desired and serve immediately.

Attn Chocoholics: The World's Largest Chocolate Fair Is Coming to Brazil

It's just been announced that the largest international chocolate fair and exposition, the Salon do Chocolat, will be held for the first time in the Southern Hemisphere in 2012, specifically in the Brazilian city of Salvador, Bahia.

The Salon, which held its first edition in Paris in 1995 has since been hosted by cities such as New York, Shanghai, Madrid, Beijing, Lille, Bologna, Marseille and Cairo. But it's never been held in a country and region which produces cacau, the bean from which chocolate is produced. Salvador is the capital of the Brazilian state of Bahia - the largest producer of cacau in Brazil and one of the most important cacau-growing regions in the world. The Brazilian cacau-growing industry is currently growing rapidly and recovering from the effects of a devastating disease which affected large number of cacau trees in the 1980s.

Brazil is also one of the world's largest chocolate-consuming nations, and its passion for chocolate in all its forms borders at time on obsession. The most prestigious Europeans brands of chocolate, such as Valrhona and Godiva, have recently entered the Brazilian marketplace where they have had exceptional success.

Previous editions of the Salon do Chocolat have welcomed up to 20,000 visitors per day, and the government of Bahia, which is one of the event's sponsors, expects that the Salon will have a tremendous impact on Salvador's 2012 visitor numbers.

The Salon is scheduled for the first week in July, 2012. Chocoholics, mark your calendars.

RECIPE - Dark Cocada (Cocada Preta)

This Brazilian sweet is worthy of a king - or at the very least worthy of a king of dark cocada (see previous post O rei da cocada preta). Whether blue blood flows in your veins or not, you will have to agree, once you taste it, that it's worth a king's ransom (OK, we promise there'll be no more playing with the words kind, royel, regal etc. in this post. Enough is enough.)

A variation on the snow-white theme of cocada, this Brazilian sweet or candy made from grated or flaked dried coconut with some sort of sweetening ingredient and something to bind it all together comes from the north-eastern state of Bahia. Our version employs a raw, unrefined, unbleached sugar called rapadura to provide the dark color and flavor note, and a simple syrup of sugar and water to hold it all together. Outside of Brazil, rapadura is hard to find, but you can substitute Demerara brown sugar in equal quantity for a similar result. This treat is sinfully good, but be aware that it's also sinfully sweet as it's made by Brazilians. That's the way they love it, but if you or those you're serving cocada preta to lack a sweet tooth, you might find it too sweet entirely. Just a friendly warning.
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RECIPE - Dark Cocada (Cocada Preta)
Makes 30

1 lb (500 gr) rapadura (or dark Demerara sugar)
2 lbs (900 gr) white granulated sugar
4 cups (1 liter) water
3 lbs (1.5 kg) flaked unsweetened coconut

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If using rapadura, melt it in a heavy pan over low heat. Remove from heat as soon as it melts. Pass through a metal sieve to remove impurities, then reserve.

In a large heavy pan, hea the white granulated sugar over low heat until it melts, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Continue to cook and stir constantly until it begins to take on a golden color, then add the reserved rapadura or Demerara sugar. If using the sugar, continue to cook and stir until it is dissolved. Now add the water, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring all the time. When all the water is added, cook until the liquid has reached the thick syrup stage, continuing to stir. Remove from heat, fold in the coconut flakes and let cool for about 15 minutes.

Spread out enough wax paper on a large work surface or tabletop and drop 30 or so equal-sized rounds of the cocada. Spread them out slightly with the back of the wooden spoon, and let stand until completely cool and slightly hardened. Store in an air-tight container in layers, with wax paper between each layer.


Recipe translated and adapted from Cozinha Regional Brasileira by Abril Editora.

PHOTO GALLERY - Foods of the Gods, Part Two

Continuing with the gallery of photographs from the temples and kitchens of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé that began yesterday at Flavors of Brazil in this post. Many of these photos come from the market of São Joaquim, located near the center of Salvador, the present-day capital of the state of Bahia, and for more than two centuries (1549-1763)the capital of Brazil. Salvador is known for its distinctive music, architecture, cuisine and religion, all of which share deep African roots. Since more than 80% of Salvador's population has Black African ancestry, it's entirely logical that this be so.


(Remember to click the photos to see them full-size.)

Volunteers at the Umbanda center of "Father" Raimundo Troccli make a sacrificial offering of a rooster purchased the previous day at the market for 50 reais (about 25 USD)

At "Father" Raimundo Troccli's Umbanda center volunteers Graciliano Neto, 24, and Ailda Ferreira, 48, prepare basic seasonings.

Ingredients for foods of the gods can be found at São Joaquim Market, in central Salvador.

"Father" Raimundo Troccli chooses a live rooster for sacrificial offering at the São Joaquim Market.

Bottles of dendê oil at the São Joaquim Market in central Salvador.

Dried shrimps at the São Joaquim Market.

Okra, a ritualistically important food, at the São Joaquim Market in Salvador.

A basket of pomegranates at the São Joaquim Market.

Grating fresh coconuts at the São Joaquim Market.

Black-eyed-peas at the São Joaquim Market in Salvador.

Dried white corn at the São Joaquim Market.

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PHOTO GALLERY - Foods of the Gods

As promised last Saturday here at Flavors of Brazil, this is the first of two posts containing photographs from the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. These photographs accompanied a recent articla in that paper about the intimate connection between the rituals of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé as it is practiced in the state of Bahia, Brazil, and the state's much-lauded traditional cuisine. Many of the most well-known dishes of Bahian food come directly from Candomblé rituals, and other dishes are inspired by Candomblé.

Candomblé is an animistic and polytheistic religion, with a large pantheon of nature spirits or gods (known as Orixás or Orishas). Its rituals involve possession of the initiated by Orishas, offerings and sacrifices from the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms. Rituals begin with the offerings and sacrifice. Then the initiates begin to dance and chant, accompanied by rhythmic percussion that gradually increases in intensity until one or more of the initiated becomes possessed by the spirit on an Orisha. In a trance state, the initiate who bears the spirit of the Orisha takes on the characteristic mannerisms and traits of the Orisha. At the end of the ritual, after the intensity and tension of the possessions, things become more relaxed, and the process ends with an elaborate feast for all participants. The feast usually includes dishes prepared from the animals that were sacrificed and offered to the Orishas.

Here is the first set of photos, with translations of the original captions by Flavors of Brazil. (Remember to click the photos to see them full-size.

Young Ney da Silva Barbosa, aged 9, with dishes of food from the candomblé temple Ile Axé Iba Lugan, headed by mother-of-saints Dona Jacira de Santana Miranda.

Plate of Acarajé: black-eyed pea fritters with shrimps cooked in dendê oil, prepared at the candomblé temple Ile Axé Iba Lugan, headed by mother-of-saints Dona Jacira de Santana Miranda

Mother-of-saints Dona Jacira de Santana Miranda, 60, makes food for the Orishas (for human consumption) at her candomblé temple in Salvador, Bahia.

Mother-of-saints Dona Jaciara Ribeiro cuts okra during preparation of foods of the gods at her temple Axé Abassa de Ogum, in Paripe, on the outskirts of Salvador.

In his Umbanda center in Cosme Faria (a suburb of Salvador) "Father" Raimundo Troccli adds honey to complete a dish of pumpkin cooked with tobacco leaves and acaça to be offered to the Orishá Cabloco.

Mother-of-saints Dona Jaciara Ribeiro preparing okra at her temple.

Mother-of-saints Dona Jaciara Ribeiro adds dendê oil to a dish for the gods.

Food preparation (fried yams and black-eyed peas with dried shrimps) at the temple.

Volunteers at "Father" Raimundo Troccli's Umbanda center serve food after a ritual offering of foods of the gods.

Shredded okra with shrimps, onions and dendê oil (lower right), pumpkin cooked with tobacco leaves, garnished with honey and acaça (upper right), white corn with honey, flower-blossom water and olive oil (lower right), black beans and shrimps, seasoned with onion and olive oil, garnished with acaça; all prepared to be offered to the gods at "Father" Raimundo's Umbanda center.

At the Umbanda center of "Father" Raimundo Troccli, a volunteer stirs a mixture of okra and shrimp, seasoned with onions and dendê.